“Maroon!” I yelled up the pipe.
After what felt like an eternity, we were both pretty sure he had all the answers spelled correctly. Abdulrahman thanked me and told me they were leaving.
“Wait, Abdulrahman! Where are you going? When will I get to go back to Kabul?”
“Soon, inshallah, soon,” he told me. “Goodbye now. We come later.” The men exchanged a few words in Pashto with Shafirgullah, and then their footsteps faded into the distance. I imagined they were going somewhere to call the negotiators and give them my answers.
I hoped it all meant that they were making progress. I wasn’t really sure what to think. I looked up the pipe and saw a sliver of light through the rocks. Shafirgullah had sat back down and was stuffing cookies into his mouth. An early dinner, perhaps. I wasn’t hungry so I sat back and lit a cigarette, and allowed my memories to take me away from where I was for a while. I flipped through my notebook and found my calendar. Today was October 28, day sixteen in the hole. It felt like an eternity had passed. Day sixteen. I wasn’t even counting that first half day. I heard chanting. Shafirgullah was singing the Koran again. He had a good voice, and I closed my eyes and tried to let the music lift me from the place. It worked until he stopped.
“You!”
I opened my eyes and saw that he was staring at me, his eyes dark and beady. It was my turn, he was telling me, my turn to sing again.
You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord,
Who abide in His shadow for life,
Say to the Lord, “My Refuge, my Rock in Whom I trust.”
And he will raise you up on eagle’s wings,
Bear you on the breath of dawn,
Make you to shine like the sun,
And hold you in the palm of His Hand.
And back and forth, back and forth. I ran out of hymns, so I started singing other songs.
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light–
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight–
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so galantly streaming
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
My voice cracked a bit on the last brave, but I sang it loud and proud, like I was a New York Yankees fan belting it out at the first game of the World Series. Shafirgullah clearly had no idea what the song was because he clapped and smiled and laughed.
“You,” I said, signalling that it was his turn.
He shook his head. “You, again.”
Again I sang the American national anthem. Louder this time, just in case there was someone above the hole. We couldn’t have been far from Bagram, where the Americans were based. Imagine if an American soldier from Bagram was in the area and heard the faint tones of his or her national anthem coming from somewhere underground. That would be a great way to get rescued. I raised my voice again—And the rocket’s red glare! Shafirgullah looked completely entranced. I’d sung “O Canada” earlier, but it hadn’t received this kind of reaction. I’m a proud Canadian, but I’ve always preferred the American anthem—I sing both at hockey games. “The Star Spangled Banner” seems to me to have more passion; of course it does—the poem from which its lyrics come was born out of a war. Shafirgullah was loving it. He clapped and clapped after I was done, before starting his Koran chanting again.
We took turns singing late into the night, until Shafirgullah was tired and fell asleep, to my great envy. I noticed that he had forgotten to put the Kalashnikov behind his pillow—it was lying between us, and I picked it up and turned it over and over in my hands. The magazine wasn’t attached, so Shafirgullah was in no danger of being shot in the head while he slept, but again I imagined myself shooting my captor between the eyes. He wouldn’t even feel anything. After all, he was the one who had plunged a knife into my shoulder and hand. I put the gun down and examined the scab on my hand. It was black and hard, and I gingerly picked at it. I could see pink beneath, a sign that the skin was healing. The wound no longer hurt, so I continued picking at the scab until it peeled off.
Then I tried to see the wound on my shoulder. As I had seen earlier, the pink toilet paper had become part of the scab. It was big and hard, and hurt when I picked gently at it. I decided to leave it alone for the time being. The last thing I wanted was for the wound to get infected, and my fingers weren’t exactly clean. My fingernails hadn’t been cut in more than two weeks, and a layer of dirt had formed under each nail. I reached for my backpack and took my nail clippers out of my makeup bag. One by one, I cut off my dirty nails, and that made me feel a little better. If only I could have a shower, I would feel a hundred times better. I couldn’t stand how I smelled. I don’t remember ever being so dirty in my life.
I took my hair out of its ponytail and shook out the dirt and dust. I tried to comb my hair out a bit with my fingers, but it was matted, and made my hands dirty, so I gave up, tied it up again, and rinsed my hands with water from the can.
My friends like to joke that I’m the messiest clean freak they know. Although my desk is typically covered in mountains of paper, I know where everything is. And despite the mess, the desk, and my computer and keyboard, is scrubbed and disinfected. And I always use hand sanitizer. In fact, I’d had a little bottle of it in my backpack. When I couldn’t find it, I assumed it was one of the things Abdulrahman had filched after I arrived at the abandoned white house.
I felt disgusting. Khalid had come in the other night reeking of garlic so badly that I could hardly breathe. I knew Afghans ate a lot of raw garlic, but in a small space, the odour was almost unbearable. I had to chain-smoke to mask the smell. The smell of the trash-can toilet was no better. My captors may have been emptying it out every other night, but they were not cleaning it, and I was keeping it as far into the tunnel as I could, crawling up to bring it down when I had to go to the bathroom.
I opened my notebook again. There were maybe only three virgin pages left, but I scribbled on one anyway.
Dear P,
Do you think that if you had to, you could kill someone? I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t—even if it was the only thing I could do to save my own life. Now, if you were the one in this hole, I would probably have no problem killing your captors, but for some reason, I can’t bring myself to shoot these guys. I guess I’m not as tough and hard-core as I like to think I am. Don’t tell anyone, okay? Fung’s a wuss.
I’m just really tired today. They came and asked me a couple more proof-of-life questions, so I hope that my answers will make you feel a little better that I’m still alive and hanging in there. I can’t imagine what you must be going through, and I’m really, really sorry. I’m trying hard to think positive, and I know these things take time, and I know everyone is trying really hard to get me home. I just hope it happens soon.
I’m with you, P. I’m coming back. I promise.
Love you,
xox
My blue pen was running out of ink, but I wasn’t concerned—I had a few more in my knapsack. I had bought a bunch at the PX—the post exchange—in Kandahar before going to Kabul. I always travelled with lots of pens and pencils so that I could hand them out to Afghan children, which I had done at the refugee camp the day I was kidnapped. Soldiers and aid workers had told me time and time again that it was the best thing, maybe the only thing, I could do for the Afghan children I met while on assignment. Pens and paper were precious commodities in this war-ravaged country, and I still remembered the smiles on their faces upon receiving a simple pen from a stranger.
I took the rosary out of my pocket and stared at the cross. I traced it on my notepad underneath my last note to Paul and then made a pattern on it, colouring in t
he shapes I’d drawn. I was pleased with it—it looked like a Celtic cross. I drew a few more crosses with different designs, until my pen died. Then I turned off the lamp and prayed the rosary until I fell asleep.
Dearest M,
I’m worried that your kidnapping will bring a real change in your life, M, one of those events that will mark you forever. I long to hear your voice tonight, just a few words like, “I’m okay, really, I’m okay.” That’s all I need, and I can’t imagine what your parents and Vanessa are going through.
Good night, dear M, and I dread to think of you sleeping in a dark, cold room, probably with your feet tied and perhaps even your hands. I know you will wake up a lot, and I know you will be praying a lot, and I suspect you’ve already forgiven the people who are doing this to you. Come back.
xx
No one came the next day, and Shafirgullah made several phone calls after dark to try to find out what was going on. He turned to me at one point and said, “You. Kabul. Sunday.” This was not the first time he had told me my release was imminent. He had a bad habit of saying “two days” or “three days, inshallah” and nothing would happen, so I had learned not to believe him. He was a proven liar. But this was the first time he mentioned a specific day.
“Sunday,” I said. “Today is Wednesday. So four more days.”
“No, five days,” he argued.
“No, today is Wednesday. So Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.”
He counted the days with his hands and then nodded. “Four day.”
“I don’t believe you,” I told him. “I think you are lying. You always tell me I go soon, but it never happens.”
“Sunday, Sunday!” he sang. “Sunday. You! Kabul!” It sounded more like a taunt than a promise, and I knew better than to get my hopes up, even though he was now pinpointing a day.
“Where is Khalid?” I asked. “I don’t believe you. I want to talk to him.”
“Khalid Kabul” came the pat answer.
“What is Khalid doing in Kabul?” I asked.
Shafirgullah shrugged and kept singing to himself. Sometimes I thought he was perhaps a little mentally disordered. In North America, he would probably be diagnosed with a mild retardation. There was something off about him, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. He wasn’t manic or psychotic, but he was someone who would probably require therapy or some sort of treatment in any other, sane part of the world.
I was always disappointed when Khalid didn’t show up because another twenty-four hours with Shafirgullah would be exhausting and monotonous, with little conversation to make time move along.
Suddenly, Shafirgullah stopped singing. I looked up and realized what had interrupted him. Footsteps. And then thump, thump, thump. Then the same sound we’d heard before: tap, tap, tap, as if someone was using a stick to poke the ground, looking for an opening. Shafirgullah put his finger to his lips, motioning for me not to speak. He grabbed his rifle and inserted the magazine. What did he think he could do with it? Shoot anyone who tried to come in? It would be a zero-sum game, and I would never survive a shootout here. Not one between my captors and the ANP or the Taliban, anyway.
Shafirgullah was worried. He held the rifle tightly and gave me a look indicating he didn’t know who it was. The tapping went on for a while longer, and then several sets of footsteps faded into the distance.
Shafirgullah waited a while longer before taking his cell phone out and putting the SIM card in. He punched in a number and hit send. I could hear a male voice through the receiver. “As-Salaam Alaikum.” It sounded like Khalid. The men spoke in hushed tones for several minutes.
“Taliban,” Shafirgullah announced when he hung up the phone.
“Is that what Khalid said?” I asked.
“Yes. Khalid. Hezbollah.”
“Hezbollah?” I asked.
“Khalid,” he answered, nodding. “Hezbollah.”
It figures, I thought, that Khalid wasn’t his real name. Neither could Hezbollah be his name. Although it seemed kind of fitting that a would-be terrorist like Khalid would take the same name as the Lebanese militia organization. It’s true what they say about one man’s terrorist being another man’s freedom fighter. Fortunately for me, my kidnappers were neither. They were a young band of crude criminals who used fundamentalist Islamist ideology as an excuse to commit petty crimes. Well, kidnapping may not be such a petty crime, but I might have had more respect for them if they were truly willing to die for their beliefs. However, it seemed that for them, religion was simply an excuse to indulge in thuggery.
Of course, I would be in serious trouble if they were truly Al Qaeda or Taliban because then I would be a political prisoner, and they’d not hesitate to behead me in front of a flag. And that I definitely didn’t want. I thought about Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped by Al Qaeda militants and then brutally beheaded—on tape—after several other videotapes were made of him denouncing the United States. Just the memory of what happened to him sent chills up and down my spine. I said a quiet thank you to God that my kidnappers were just a gang of petty thieves.
Shafirgullah seemed to have gotten over his earlier apprehension. With the footsteps now long gone, his appetite returned. He opened a box of chocolate cookies and ate every crumb, then half of another box. And then he picked at some dry bread a few days old. All washed down with two boxes of cherry juice.
I wondered if he was right, or telling the truth, that I would be released on Sunday. The thought had me excited, and as much as I didn’t want to get my hopes up, I let my mind go crazy for a while. How would I be let go? I hoped they wouldn’t just dump me off at the village, to find my own way back to Kabul. I had no cell phone—it was doubtful mine would be returned to me—no way to contact anyone, and God forbid I should be kidnapped again as I was trying to get back to the capital.
No, Khalid had told me before that they always dropped off their hostages at the place from where they were taken. So that would mean the refugee camp. I imagined riding back to Kabul on the back of the motorcycle, or even riding halfway back before the long-haired Afghan drove us the rest of the way in his beat-up blue car. We’d get to the camp and then what? Would they just leave me at the gates? Would someone be there looking for me? Would the ANP be lying in wait, ready to pounce on my kidnappers as soon as I was safe? I imagined Khalid resisting arrest, and being gunned down in a hail of bullets by Afghan officers trying to make a show of force. No, I thought, it was more likely he would let me walk back to the camp on my own, let me walk off into the night, making sure I was okay from the safe confines of the car.
I tried not to get too excited, but hope was all I had. Earlier, I had barely been able to imagine staying in the hole another day, but suddenly, four more days didn’t seem so bad. I’d already been there for sixteen. What’s another four? There would just be a little more dirt to scrub off at the end of it all. And boy, did I need a good scrub.
I flipped through the pages of my notebook to my calendar. Today was October 29. Sunday would be November 2, two days before the US election. Good, that meant I would be able to watch results somewhere. It was going to be such a historic night, and I didn’t want to miss it. Barack Obama was most probably going to be elected the first black president in American history. I wanted to witness it, even from faraway Afghanistan, the place that would likely define his foreign policy for the next four years.
So this was good. I figured if I was released on Sunday night, Monday would be full of official obligations—after being reunited with Paul, I would likely have to speak with the Canadian ambassador, and meet with the Afghan police to debrief them. Then maybe Paul and I could get a military flight on Tuesday back to Kandahar, where I could collect my belongings, and we’d be on a flight back to Dubai on Wednesday, two weeks later than scheduled.
Methodically, I went through the dates. I probably wouldn’t get back to Canada until the week of the tenth, and I’d go through Vancouver to see my parents an
d reassure them I was okay. I’d spend a week with them, before heading to Regina to start the moving process. That would put me into the last week of November. I then had to get to Toronto and find a place to live, but it was definitely doable.
Then it would be December. And Christmas was just around the corner. I had missed my friend Kas’s Christmas party the year before, and I was thinking perhaps I could persuade her to have another one this year. A cocktail party, and I would do all the cooking. Yes, that would be the perfect way to celebrate my freedom—surrounded by my family and friends.
I started planning in my head, making a menu and drawing up the guest list. But I’d better let Kas know first. I flipped to the second-to-last empty page in my notebook and started writing.
Hey dude,
It’s about eleven at night here in my little space, and I need to run something by you. First of all, I’m okay. I know you and the girls are probably really worried about me, but please try not to be. I hope you are having lots of drinks for me back home. I’m still moving to Toronto, inshallah, in time for Christmas—and I’m making some plans for us. You know your Christmas party last year? The one I missed? I’m hoping we can do it again—at your loft—and I’ll cater it.
We’ll do all your favourite things, turkey meatballs, but we’ll do them as hors d’oeuvres, with toothpicks. Then we’ll do a brie, wild mushroom, and caramelized onion pizza, cut into wedges. And then I’ll make those little crab cakes I made at Moe’s. Oh, and maybe those little spinach and feta pies. I can do those in advance with puff pastry and freeze them, and we’ll bake them in your kitchen. And green onion cake, the ones I get in Chinatown, but I’ll top them with a dill crème fraîche and smoked salmon. And mini chocolate cupcakes for dessert.
What do you think? We could invite everyone. It will be a big Christmas party—because you know the CBC doesn’t have one anymore. Your place is big enough to hold, what, forty or fifty people? And we won’t have to worry about the air conditioning this time!
Under an Afghan Sky Page 22